September 29, 2005

I went on a cleaning spree today (more on that later) which included putting Peter's room back together. As a result, tonight is Test Night for putting Peter to sleep in his very own (ignore the fact that I've been sleeping there for weeks) twin bed in his room. It probably wasn't the smartest idea because he went to bed near 11 for the past two nights, so we're bumping up bedtime AND moving him, but we're giving it a shot. If it takes hours and he jumps out by midnight anyway, then we'll call it quits for a couple weeks. But he's pretty much sleeping through the night now, so the hope is that once he does sleep, he'll stay there until 6 or 7. I'm fine with him coming back to our bed to nurse in the early morning like we've been doing for awhile.

...

Okay, it's an hour later and the boy's asleep. He nursed for the first 15 minutes and clearly wanted to go to the big bed. Then Dan held onto him for the next 45 minutes and he alternated crying and babbling. I came back and let him nurse another 15 minutes and he finally keeled over. I stayed for another half an hour to make sure he was really out (other times when we sort of tried this, we didn't stay long enough and he immediately woke up and left). Now we'll see if he stays there. The bathroom door is closed and the top of the stairs gate is latched, so he can only get into the two bedrooms.

In cleaning news, Dan and I were over at my parents' last night and realized that after a few hours, their house looked almost as bad as ours--apparently we spread disaster wherever we go. Today it was cold outside and we didn't have any plans, so I made a point of getting around to all the household chores I'd been putting off. Dan and I generally figure that I should accomplish whatever I can during the day and we both have equal responsibility for keeping the house neat and toddler happy when we're both home. Unfortunately, this has turned into neither of us ever cleaning anything. Well, almost never. So today, I put away two loads of laundry, returned two dozen books to the shelf, made both beds, brought two Rubbermaid bins of outgrown clothes to the basement, reorganized a third bin before bringing it down too, had Peter put away toys after he finished with them, brought two toolboxes, a set of drill bits, and assorted construction doodads to the basement, put my quilting and knitting books back on the shelf, brought the diapers, covers, and pail back upstairs, moved Peter's bedroom furniture back to its original locations, showered, lanolized a pair of pants, vacuumed the BASEMENT, washed the diapers and two more loads of laundry, scanned the Today show for segments including my sister*, read two chapters of Amy F!sher's book--the ones about her being abused in prison**, napped 30 minutes (and managed to extricate myself for another 90 while Peter napped), cooked lunch, came up with a plan for dinner that used up all our leftovers, mowed the front lawn and 2/3 of the back, raked, sorted the recycling, brought out the garbage, and washed two days worth of dishes. And I read "The Red Balloon" (Amy's abbreviated version) and "Big Cat Big Hat" to Peter more times than I was happy about. On Peter's end, he did his part to wash dishes and vacuum, and he made some nice car towers with MegaBlocks--he takes a car base and towers the 1x1 pieces ten or fifteen blocks high. A very good sport, he was. Dan doesn't let him wash dishes because it's destroying the finish on our cabinets, but I let him stay on the stepstool until he starts dumping his little cups out of the sink--he made it to the pots and pans today.

I think going to bed at 11pm must agree with me, darn it.

* My sister is an unpaid intern with Habitat for Humanity (she's put up with southern Georgia heat all summer without air conditioning) and is now in Los Angeles doing PR work with her boss during a big building blitz that they're featuring on Today, among other programs.

** The same sister gave me the book as a joke last Christmas and I figured I might as well read it. She seems to have turned her life around pretty well, despite having married someone who looks eerily like Joey. They've got two kids and she's a journalist. So long as she keeps fading into the woodwork, I'll be happy.

September 23, 2005

When he was good, he was very, very good, and when he was bad, he was horrid.

I believe Peter's sleeping-through-the-night record is now 4 of 6 in recent days. That would be fabulous if the two off-nights didn't involve so much screaming and nursing. The night before last, he woke up with a temp of 101 at 1:30 and he couldn't calm down for an hour. When he did, it was only to nurse, which he continued until 5:30. Then Dan's alarm went off and Peter bit my nipple harder than I can remember him doing in a long time, so we all got up and had breakfast together. A nice little pre-dawn bite to eat perhaps, but I'd rather avoid it in the future. At 6:30 he went back to sleep and nursed for another 2 hours before our alarm went off. Ugh. Knowing his temperature was high (but hasn't gone up again since) makes me wonder if his two-year-old molars might be working their way up. He tends to go through the worst teething pain a month or two before the teeth break through and my happy average-baby-teething-chart says that lower molars come at 20 months, so it seems possible. At the moment, I'm clinging to the concept because I need a reason why my happy kid has random psycho-baby hours all of a sudden. Last night, he slept from 11pm-6am without nursing, then nursed from 6-8:30. Then he got out of bed, asked to go downstairs, then wanted to nurse on the couch. The two of us slept there until almost 11:30. Peter is a late riser, but this is crazy. He also napped in my lap for an hour at 7pm. I wish I could discuss it with him, the switch from clingy-must-nurse-now-or-scream child to bouncy-happy-can-I-have-a-cracker Peter is so fast.

With the first day of fall and the weatherman's predictions of 60-degree temps for awhile, I convinced my SIL to come over and help me pare down my maternity wardrobe this afternoon. Since massive storms last night knocked out her power at home, spending her day off with the kiddo and I sounded pretty good. As a bonus, the other SIL came too and watched Peter stand on a stool putting a key into our deadbolt repeatedly while we sorted clothes. I ended up with two garbage bags full of maternity wear to bring to the local woman/baby care center that I just don't want to ever see again. I had to explain repeatedly why yoga pants really are the only acceptable pants that a nine-month pregnant woman has any desire to wear so it was worth keeping a few pair around. I got enough maternity clothes for my birthday that when I do finally need them (one of these days...) I won't feel like I'm stuck with the same old stuff. I had no idea I accumulated so much last time--a family friend gave me all her maternity clothes and I must have picked up more along the way. I'm just glad someone else will be able to use it now.

I'm also switching Peter over to just 24 mo/2T clothes after being on the edge of 18 mo/24 mo all summer. We've only had a few long sleeve shirts and pants in the drawers all summer and it was time to see what my mom has collected during garage sale season. Oh my freaking goodness, she went over the top. After I discarded the really funky looking ones, I was left with 21 pair of pants or overalls. I bet I wear the same 4 pair of pants nearly all the time--what does a one year old need that many pants for? It's harder to determine which of his to dump without trying them on him, so I shoved all 21 into the drawer and figure I'll wheedle them down as the season goes on. My mom rarely spends more than 50 cents on an article of clothing, but she must just pick up everything in half-decent shape in his size that she finds. It's her favorite summer pasttime. I was too overwhelmed by the pants to tackle the shirts, so that might be tomorrow's project. My goal is to never keep more than one rubbermaid bin of baby clothes per size so that I don't end up storing too much. It's going to be more complicated if we have a girl and need to determine what's gender neutral enough. So now I have the two maternity bags and one of toddler clothes with more on the way. Phew.

September 20, 2005

I realized that I never did an 18 month update for Peter, so I'll do a quick version of that along with a pregnancy update before I forget to do either.

15 weeks, 6 days

I finally went to see the midwife today! It was sort of weird going back there with Peter in tow but she was excited to see how big and active he is now. Peter definitely noticed that he wasn't the center of attention--he kept asking to nurse and was antsy.

We met the apprentice--she was easy to talk to and all of us got along well, so that was a good start. She has 8 kids and has been working with Jeanne for 6 years. She has started being the primary midwife for some clients, so she's about as experienced as an apprentice gets.

I had to get a refresher on how the pee sticks work--I always worry I'll dip them too long or something ridiculous like that. My protein and glucose levels were both normal, though. I had to do the finger stick for hemoglobin--it was 11.5, which they were both happy about, but I never remember what the ideal range is. Hopefully I won't need that again for awhile, but since I skipped the official blood tests this time around, there wasn't much choice in the matter today. I was up two pounds (although I was wearing jeans and felt the need to see how much they added--a pound and a half, so I rounded down the half). I'll laugh once I'm at 170 over quibbling about half pounds now, but whatever. I was up 5 or 6 pounds at this point with Peter and I started 5 pounds heavier, so I'm a full 10 pounds lighter now. We'll see whether the weight comes later if my extra walking and rollerblading combined with breastfeeding mean that I gain less overall. Jeanne was glad to hear that I'm being more active this time around.

She tried to palpate my uterus, but I'm carrying the baby really low and barely out of my pelvis now, so there wasn't much to check. She said there's definitely a baby in there, which was nice to hear since I've been feeling good enough that we sort of wonder sometimes. Next time, we'll at least try to hear the heartbeat with the fetoscope, but we couldn't get anything until 23 weeks last pregnancy. Hopefully I'll start feeling movement before my next check. I didn't feel Peter move until 19 weeks, but he wasn't ever a huge kicker. Once we hit October, I'll pay more attention.

She wants me to drink more water and keep a food diary over the next week, but my consumption was the only topic where I felt like I needed to improve. I know I should do those things (I might be eating fine, but the protein chart will be the real test) but I need someone to motivate me to do it. I'll start the food diary tomorrow--in the meantime, I made sure to have a bowl of ice cream after dinner and I'm working my way through a couple homemade cookies as I type.

We spent a fair amount of time (in the 45 minute visit) discussing nursing and how it interacts with pregnancy. She said that even if my supply has been fine so far, it will definitely drop at some point, more if Peter continues to sleep mostly through the night. I told her that my ideal situation would be Peter losing interest in nursing as the pregnancy progressed because I'm not willing to forcibly wean him. I'm not thrilled with the idea of tandem nursing and nursing during pregnancy hasn't been too enjoyable. She made the point that if I'm getting angry because he's nursing, it's my body's way of putting the new baby's needs ahead of Peter's, and that made a lot of sense to me. Peter nurses mainly for comfort now and we can find a way to wean if nursing becomes too much, physically or psychologically. I'm definitely taking the wait-and-see route with it, though. Maybe I'll end up with two happily tandem nursing kids after all.

I'm still wearing all normal clothes and feeling good, so I almost wonder why things are going so smoothly. I feel like this baby will be more prompt than his/her brother and probably not as big, but time will tell.

Peter, 18 months

Peter has been a riot recently. In the car tonight, he waved at random objects on the right, then waved to the left, then waved one hand each direction--it was like he was welcoming his adoring fans. He'll bring us book after book to read in bed and want to lie down and cuddle while we read. He's slept 8-9 hours without waking at night 3 of the past 4 nights. Of course that fourth night, he woke 3 times between 2:30 and 6:30 and I wanted to throw him out the window. We are SO READY for him to start talking. I found some ball stickers from various sports today and told him what they all were but he insisted they were all "ah-ba". Perhaps there was a 70's music connection I was unaware of. He takes our fingers and pulls us to places he wants to go. He eats constantly. At his 18 month check last week, he was 33" and 25 lbs 10 oz. He'll be solidly into 24 mo/2T winter clothes, although the shirts seem wider than necessary. He adores his toy lawnmower and going to the park. He's starting to help put toys away and bring objects where we ask. He helps me package my yarn orders, carrying the boxes and loading them into the stroller without instruction.

He knows that pinching and biting make mama and daddy hurt (he knows the sign) but it doesn't stop him from doing it and laughing. Pinching nipples is his favorite. He seems to have had some stranger anxiety lately and nurses more when we're with less-known people. If we could ignore the time between nap and dinner, then he'd be happy and cheery 90% of the time. He's usually really fun to be around, but some times are so aggravating when he won't listen. He sleeps from about 9:30-9, nursing for the last couple hours and sometimes multiple times in between, plus a 2-2.5 hour afternoon nap. Some nights he just wants to cuddle with Dan to fall asleep after nursing briefly. I'm mostly sleeping in the guest bed to encourage him to sleep longer at night.

September 17, 2005

Today was much better--thanks to all for the reassurance that I'm not crazy and everybody's kids are like that sometimes. Peter slept nine hours straight and after nursing in the early morning, didn't again until 6pm. My day started frantically as I searched the house for my wallet and house keys (buried under the buns on the dining room table, of course), but that was the only hectic half hour. We had a nice walk around Lake Harriet with my SIL and her roommate, I bought a circular needle and thick cable needle for my latest project: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall05/PATTjosephine.html . I'm not only a yarn snob, I'm also a circular needle snob now, apparently, since I was going bananas trying to knit with 14" size 11 straight needles. I'm so used to worsted weight on 6's that it feels really funky to get less than 3 stitches an inch. But the baby alpaca yarn I got is just heavenly. Yum. My plan is to knit the sweater over the course of the next month or so when I'm not in the mood for longies. I haven't gotten the hang of cables yet--I need another hand or two. I forget how ackward it is to try a new knitting technique, especially with big funky needles and chunky yarn. I can't remember the last time I knit something for myself, so this will be a nice treat. The sweater is modeled after the one Josephine (the son's wife) wore in "Big Fish" and she was supposed to be 7 months pregnant, so I figure it should work most of the winter.

Anyway, after going around the lake, to the yarn store, and to the bank, we came home to find my parents here mowing and weeding our lawn. Ahhhh. Our poor, neglected yard. I'm starting to realize the draw of condos and townhouses. Peter was beyond excited to have his beloved grandpa using his amazing power mower at OUR house--he followed him with his plastic mower until they were both done.

Even better, Mom stayed and watched Peter for a few hours while I joined Dan at his headmaster's house for happy hour. Cheesy puffs, citrus sparkling juice, and interesting coworkers--I didn't even mind the 45 minute drive each way. That last bit may have been due to my trying something my knitting buddies suggest--knitting at long stop lights. I should see if I made noticeable progress on those pant legs. I think having Peter and knitting in the car would be over the top and I rarely drive during rush hour anyway, but it was a fun little experiment.

Peter skipped his nap due to grandpa adrenaline, but he fell asleep in my lap for an hour at 7pm, which is cute,but would have been better if my arm hadn't been trapped under his head. We ate a late dinner of homemade pizza and Peter fell asleep with Dan around 10 (second time this week he's unlatched, asked for water, waved bye-bye to me, snuggled next to daddy, and fallen asleep without much fuss). Ahhh.

September 16, 2005

Afternoons like this one make me wish I could have something stronger than tea.

Everything was fine through naptime (although I'm getting awfully tired-ha ha-of the nightly hour-long screaming jags Peter's been throwing this week). We woke up at 4:30 in decent moods but it went downhill after that. I wouldn't let Peter throw his ball-popper balls down the stairs or climb the stairs without supervision and the crankiness came out. I vacuumed the living room and he threw a fit when I went to switch to a different outlet. The house is quite vacuumed now since he was happy so long as the darn thing was on. I was determined to get through the laundry and while carrying both Peter and the hamper down the stairs, he decided it was HILARIOUS to pinch my nipple. The sterner I got telling him that wasn't okay, the harder he laughed. He knocked a glass of water over on a set of just-developed photos and a variety of other papers and wood furniture. I had to change his diaper every time he peed because he was looking rashy this morning, which always gets him upset. I ended up getting quite a bit done because if I gave him jobs to help me, he stayed out of trouble. So half the dishes are washed, there are new sheets on the bed and I think the 6th load of clothes is in the dryer.

Dan still wasn't home at 6:30 and when he finally walked in the door a few minutes later, I gave him a big hug and Peter followed suit, hugging the back of my legs. Unfortunately, he also bit me in the thigh, which was the last straw. I curled up on the floor and cried and refused to get up for at least 10 or 15 minutes. Peter did seem to recognize that he'd done something to make me "sleep" on the floor, so maybe he'll eventually understand consequences after all. I think that last pregnancy I had 6 "just-get-me-out-of-here-I've-had-enough" crying jags and it looks like it's time to start the tally for this pregnancy, too.

I'm 15w2d now and my belly is starting to make itself known. I think clothing styles must have changed enough in the past two years to affect the longevity of non-maternity clothes because almost everything still fits. I don't have super-low rise pants, but the lower rise must be just enough to keep from being uncomfortable. I'm in my size 10 jeans, no problem--I'd just made it down to the 8's before getting pregnant--but my belly is still smaller than it was at two months postpartum when I was in 12's. Once the hot days disappear for good, I might switch to the maternity wardrobe just to keep from having to do a secondary closet switch. I'm finding that a couple of my closer-fitting shirts started showing my belly button (which is a complete outty now), so those are shoved to the bottom of the drawer.

Before I hit 16 weeks, I'm hoping to get a belly shot, and then I'll post my 5 week and 15 week ones for comparison's sake.

September 10, 2005

Peter and I ate the last of the easily scavenged food for lunch so the three of us found ourselves at Olive Garden for dinner. The wait was over half an hour, but Peter was happy running around the grass and watching the bulldozer across the street. Dan did all the toddler-chasing when necessary. We didn't get home until 8:30ish and Dan immediately fell asleep on the floor but Peter was just getting started. By 9:30, Dan was up in bed, I was winding yarn, and Peter chasing a battery-operated train engine around the living room saying "uh-oh" every time it got stuck. Hmm, I'm not the one who let it run behind the file cabinet, kiddo. The battery died after awhile and Peter contented himself climbing in and out of the giant yarn box and throwing the 50 remaining skeins in and out of it for a good half an hour. Later, he made a fort under the dining room table, begged some Cheerios off of me, had me read him "Belly Button Book" and "Snuggle Bunny" (which he finds whenever I sing its associated song) a few times, paged through the baby magazines my mom brought over, and just ran back and forth a bit. When I asked if he wanted to go sleep upstairs with Daddy, he shook a very clear no and grunted. It was midnight before he asked to nurse and signed to sleep. Okey-dokey. We went upstairs and 13 minutes of nursing later, he unlatched, rolled over to Dan, and hasn't been heard from since. I have no idea when he'll wake up in the morning, but if he's playing by himself happily and goes to sleep that easily, it works for me.

I've had 19 yarn orders in the past 48 hours, totalling over $700. It would be a really good idea if I could sort through them before 2am so that USPS would come pick them up in the morning but I somehow haven't managed to pull that off. Bringing this morning's 12 packages into the post office felt like something from a sitcom--I only dropped boxes twice and Peter stayed where I asked him to go, other than knocking some Mickey Mouse boxes off the wall. Now I need to remember to go there again before 1pm tomorrow to get the next set off.

Our new-to-us-actually-very-old front door is installed, minus weather stripping and trim. I found a shower curtain surround-pole at Menards and might be able to avoid a special order. The handyman is returning for one last day on Monday. I suppose I'll need to arrange for painting and staining after that. But the house is going to be so nice this winter!

September 09, 2005

Today Peter was 18 months old. I sang him the "Happy Half-Birthday" song and made a big deal about his being one and a half, but for some reason, he didn't get too excited. Maybe next year. My family used to serve cupcakes on half birthdays--my mom still calls to congratulate me on both my half birthday and baptism birthday. We're big on celebrations, I guess.

I managed to convince Dan over the weekend that Peter's hair was too long. In some weather, it curls up really cutely in the back, but mostly it looks frizzy. On Tuesday, we went to a kids' hair cutting place and realized that we needed an appointment (I figured it was safe since older kids are back in school. Guess not). I showed him around and he enjoyed playing with their toys. This morning we returned at our scheduled hour and Peter became cling-boy. No, he didn't want to get down and play. Or sit in the chair. Or watch the TV. Or wear the cape. Eventually, he got the trim while sitting on my lap and we both got covered in hair. Eh well, it's thin and blonde. They had special First Haircut envelopes and gave us both the first lock and some of the longer ones. A bit over the top maybe, but handy. Hopefully, it'll either take 6 months for Peter's hair to get long again or we'll figure out how to cut it ourselves. Dan cuts his own hair, but I don't know how well Peter would handle the trimmer.

While trying to calm the terrified child, I managed to feel like the most overprotective zealous mother.

"He can have his sucker now instead of later" said the salon lady. "Sorry, we don't give him sugar yet."

"Do you know who's on the TV, Peter?" she tries. Two problems with that one--he doesn't say his own name, let alone Elmo's. Secondly, he has watched maybe 5 minutes of Sesame Street total in his life and it suddenly felt ridiculous to mention that.

"Does he like 'Bob the Builder'?...How about trucks in general?" Aha, finally something I can work with--he might actually pay attention to a show involving construction vehicles, especially once she also handed him a truck and stuffed duck to put in it.

The employees were great--they obviously knew how to deal with kids. I'm just not used to being hit with so many things we haven't exposed Peter to all at once.

In the end, Peter got a sticker that he liked (although pulling out 10 feet of the sticker roll was even better) and I got to eat the sucker. Yum.

September 08, 2005

This past week, I've felt like the options are to blog about Katrina or not at all and the latter was easier. I got tired of reading blogs of people complaining but I'm not about to argue that they're wrong. I don't want to get into the blaming game many people seem caught up in. I've read more of the newspaper in the last week than I have for years and we gave what we could. Is it horrible that I'd like to move on? I feel terribly shallow for not thinking constantly about the disaster victims and there's probably more I could and should do, but for now, the people and work in my house are taking precedence.

I had my first mini-freak out about the pregnancy the other day. It's almost two weeks until my first midwife visit and I suddenly wanted desperately to hear the heartbeat or have some verification that there's really a growing baby in there. I'm still wearing normal clothes, I might be up two pounds, and it just seemed like things should have progressed more by now. Dan opened our belly shot album and pointed out that I look incredibly similar bellywise now as at 14 weeks with Peter. I'm not sure why nothing fit then, but less weight gain is probably healthy at this stage of things. My midwife only uses the fetoscope, so I won't likely hear the baby's heartbeat until the 20 week appointment (if then). The next month should be a big one both for increasing roundness and hopefully feeling the first movements. But for now, I just twiddle my thumbs and be grateful that the early-pregnancy exhaustion seems to be passing.

Peter's sleep habits have turned funky this week. He wouldn't nap in the afternoon for the past two days, but slept in someone's lap for 2 hours each evening, which means that he was awake at midnight last night and 11pm tonight. He writhes as he nurses in bed, which leads to my unlatching him and Dan keeping him in bed, often crying. At least last night, he slept without nursing until 7:30 am while I slept in his bed, so I was a much happier mother by the morning than over the weekend, where he wanted to nurse constantly. I'm torn over how to deal with frequent requests to nurse. At night, I definitely don't run in to nurse him instantly and he often settles himself. During the day, I try to distract him first. It's not that I want to wean him completely, but he seems to be asking to nurse much more lately and that's not the direction I want to go.

Adding to yesterday's nap refusal, he bit my arm repeatedly, leaving a series of welts. Gah. After that happened, I brought him to my in-laws rather than stay home alone with him and be upset.

Dan's students started school last Thursday, so he's in full teacher mode now. I don't expect to see a whole lot of him for the month of September as he settles in. He's been ready for bed before Peter lately.

After a month of waiting, my 100 skein shipment of yarn showed up this afternoon and I sent a dozen invoices to people who requested some in the past weeks. There will be a lot of balling and shipping in the next couple days, which is good for the checking account at least.

The bathtub is fully functional, at long last. It looks a bit funky because of the caulk stuck around the edge that needs to be cleaned, but the area around it looks fabulous. I'll take new pics tomorrow and upload them soon.

Speaking of which, I think a bubble bath sounds really good at the moment. Enough blogging for me!

September 01, 2005

It's a good thing I was born in the wee hours of the morning and not in the evening because I always thought that my birthday truly began 3:31 am Sept 1st and ran 24 hours after that. I would have been a really obnoxious 6 year old telling people that my birthday wasn't for 6 more hours. I used to wish my mom had held off 2 minutes so I could have been born at 3:33.

I'm 27.....now. Whee, happy birthday to me!

Amusingly, we didn't actually pay much attention to the exact time Peter was born. About the time I was birthing the placenta we decided to check the clock and estimated that he'd come at 6:35 am.

Speaking of the little guy, I've got ofoto albums from Jan-April and May-August uploaded finally. You do need to log in to see them.

I finished scrapbooking 2004 today. Originally, I wanted to be at that point by Peter's first birthday back in March, but I prefer to point out that I was only at April 2004 this past June, so at least I'm catching up. I haven't decided whether I'll keep scrapbooking after I hit his first birthday or revert to simpler albums. I like the scrapbook-as-baby book approach, but child #2 will be complicating things soon.